


blue and grey

by groove_bunker



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Garcia and Morgan flirt but they're not together, It's mostly set in the present day, Jen's a brat Alex is a perfect beacon of light and grace, Mentions of Rossi/Strauss, Teacher-Student Relationship, There are flashbacks, This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever written, there will be smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 11:24:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14283882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/groove_bunker/pseuds/groove_bunker
Summary: so much can change in 12 years.so much can stay the same as well.





	blue and grey

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this when Alex's seasons aired, and I just found it again and I'd forgotten how much I loved it. 
> 
> I love Alex Blake with my entire heart and soul. 
> 
> This doesn't actually follow any of the plot in those two seasons, other than Emily is in London, Alex replaces her and there are allusions to Strauss and Alex having ~history~
> 
> Anything in italics is a flashback.

"I would like to introduce the newest member of our team, Doctor Alex Blake."

You barely hear Hotch speaking over the sound of your heart beating in your chest. Alex's eyes had settled on you when you walked in and they've not moved yet. You can't seem to tear your eyes away either. Is this the universe's idea of a joke? You haven't seen her in well over 10 years and now she's working with you. You can tell she's thinking the same thing.

She's older, obviously, going a little grey around the temples, the lines around her eyes that crinkle when she laughs a little deeper. She wears more makeup than she ever did before, but not so much that anyone who hadn't spent 6 months 12 years ago staring at her face at every given chance would know the difference. She's smiling at you now and you think you might throw up.

"You know Spencer and Dave, obviously. But I don't believe you've met--"

"Jen..."

"Alex, it's been a while."

"Indeed."

\---

"That was weird." 

You're standing in the break room with Garcia, making coffee and trying to stop your hands from shaking. It's a fruitless endeavour, but the more you focus on that, the less you have to focus on what's going on out in the bullpen, where Spence and Alex are chatting away like old friends. 

"Was it?" 

You don't have to look up to know Garcia's rolling her eyes. Of course it was fucking weird, you don't know when it's going to  _stop_ being weird. Alex is here, in your space, and you haven't spoken for twelve long years. You'd spent a good three of them trying to forget all about her and now she's  _here,_ in the flesh. You hear her laugh at one of Spencer's terrible jokes and you feel a pull, somewhere. 

"Did you two work together at the Pentagon? Is that why you're being so shady? 

"No, we didn't. She...taught me at college, that's all. It's just weird to see her after all this time." 

 

  
_You'd been a late sign up, so your name is on the bottom of the list. You're beginning to regret this class; the reading list is longer than the rest of your others put together and the professor seems like she's got a stick up her ass._  
  


_"Jennifer Jareau?"_  
  


_"It's Jen."_  
  


_"A simple 'present' will suffice, Jennifer."_  
  


_You sit back with a groan, wondering if it's too late to pick up 19th Century Russian Literature._

 

 

It's not all, but you can't really begin to explain right now. You're not ready to open that box again. You're probably never going to be ready to open that box again.   
  
"God, she's aged well. Not to say that you're old. She's still a professor at Georgetown, you know? Didn't you go to Pittsburgh?"

"I transferred in junior year. I took her class first semester of senior year." 

  
  
_Russian Lit was full, so you're stuck in Forensic Linguistics with the bitch of the century. If you didn't know better, you'd say Doctor Alex Miller had it in for you. She seems to be all too aware that you're only half awake for this class and keeps asking you questions._

_You haven't got one right yet._

_"It's nice to know that some people have done the reading." Your friend, the one who dragged you into this in the first place, just answered the question after you'd got it catastrophically wrong (it had been a not very educated guess). Doctor Miller quirks her eyebrow at you before moving on with the lecture._

_Two classes down, just the rest of the semester to go._

 

"That's a long time to remember your college professor. Why are you so surprised, anyway? You knew she was starting." 

"She's got married since I knew her - she was Dr. Miller back then." 

"There's more to this story, Jennifer Jareau, I know when you're hiding things from me. But that can wait. When am I next seeing my darling god-son?" 

 

And with that, you're on solid ground again. 

\---

You and Alex have been working together a month, been together on two cases and apart from a brief murmur of 'you haven't changed much' while you argued with Hotch about something, neither of you have acknowledged the fact that you have a past. You can tell Garcia's going mad every time the two of you look at one another, but if she's not going to bring it up, neither are you.  
  
"JJ, I need that paperwork on my desk by 5 o'clock." Hotch calls from his office as you try to sneak away to Garcia's lair. Alex, perfect Doctor Blake, has all her paper work done and is now solving crossword puzzles out loud with Spencer. You call back to Hotch that it will be before scooping it up and running away. You think you catch the tail end of a comment between Alex and Spence which sounds a lot like 'she never has been much good at sticking to deadlines'. 

 

_"This is unsatisfactory."_

_You're not sure whether she means your mid-mid term paper (Dr. Miller likes tormenting you with take home quizzes and assignments) or just you in general. You may or may not have run into your meeting with her, still in your soccer kit and five minutes late._

_"I covered all the points, what more do you want?"_

_"You covered them basically, with no explanation. When you hand a paper in three days late, I expect more from it. I will give you a week to submit a revised paper. If not, I shall have to fail you."_

_You never did hand that paper in._

 

"Garcia, I'm going to kill her."

Garcia spins around on her chair as you burst into her office. Even the hum of her computers, which usually makes you feel more centred, is doing nothing for your blood pressure today. You dump the pile of paper work on the free space you've cleared recently, hiding away down here whenever you can. Penelope is just looking at you, concerned as usual. 

"Her being our very own Alex Blake, yes?"

You think this would be easier if someone else at the BAU was as irritated by Alex as you were but no, everyone likes her. Even Penelope, who is always on your side, thinks she's wonderful and witty and hilarious. It's not that she's rude or horrible to you. In fact, to your face, she's perfectly civil, almost friendly. Behind your back, however, you feel her gaze on you half the time, only to look around and have her look away. It's irritating and confusing and you just want to scream at her.

She won't stop calling you Jen, either.

"She's just so...perfect. Well, everyone thinks she is. She's not." 

"JJ, you're not in college anymore, you know? You can stop acting like the bratty soccer player we know you were." Garcia pats the chair next to her, "Come tell Penelope all about it."

 

_You arrive on time for your next meeting. This one is to discuss the take home quiz Doctor Miller had set the day before your best friend’s birthday. You'd filled it in, hungover and half asleep, five minutes before it was due._

_"Jennifer...I don't understand. You're a straight A student in every class, except this one. I know you can do the work; you're obviously an incredibly capable student. So why have you not yet handed one piece of work to me that suggests this to be true?"_

_Linguists use far more words than necessary, you think to yourself as she borderline rants about you making no progress. Her classes would be much more manageable if she spoke like a normal human being. Then again, you're pretty sure that she's not a normal human being, she's more likely a cyborg._

_"You play soccer, right?"_

_Her question shakes you out of your daydream about her shooting you with lasers in the middle of your next class. It could **totally** happen. _

_"Yep."_

_"Good luck at your game tomorrow. Redo the quiz for Monday." You can't even find the words to tell your friends later that Doctor Miller wished you luck; you explain your cyborg theory instead and round it off by wishing she'd stop being such a bitch._

_You leave the quiz on her desk at the end of Monday's class though, this time completed while you were actually fully conscious._

_You get an A._

 

"She's just so infuriating. Like...she was such a bitch at college and I thought by now, she would have got over herself. But that hasn't happened. No wonder her husband is off in god knows where, treating war orphans.”

Garcia winces and even you know, in your current fury, that that's a little harsh. 

“JJ, she’s not that bad! I know that for some reason, the two of you have got some issues, but you have got to grow up and let it go. What is it, at college, she failed you a couple of times? You’re 33, honey, you’ve got to move past that. No need to hold onto the bad things now.”

“I am totally ready to put it all behind me but she keeps making these _comments_ about me, to Spencer of all people and he pretends that she’s so funny and clever, when she’s just being…argh.”

You are not at all ready to put it all behind you. You spent three years trying to do that, and you thought you had but now she's here, and her perfume is still the same and sometimes she wears a shirt you recognise and everything comes flooding out of that box at the back of your mind that you've been trying desperately to keep padlocked shut.

“Have you spoken to her about it?”

“She doesn’t seem to want to! She keeps looking at me, Garcia, staring at me while my back is turned, and when I look around, she looks away. It’s creepy.”

 “Well aren’t you just a little ball of sweetness and light today? You’re ruining the atmosphere of my lair, if you don’t cheer up, I will send you and your paperwork back up there so she can stare at you while you do it. Alternatively, you could tell me exactly why you and Alex have so many issues with one another?”

“I’ll cheer up.”

 

_“You don’t think she’s in the slightest bit hot at all?” Daryl, the idiot boy who decided that forensic linguistics was going to be so much fun, whispers to you. He’s decided that the reason you butt heads with Doctor Miller so much is that there’s a great deal of unresolved sexual tension between the two of you. You still firmly state that it’s because she’s unreasonable and could do with removing the stick from up her ass. And plus, to have sexual tension, there first has to be sexual attraction. And you are not attracted to your professor, who may or may not have laser eyes._

_You have to admit though, she is more than the slightest bit hot._

_“Maybe, y’know, a little bit. Doesn’t make up for the fact that she’s a cyborg with no understanding of human emotion.”_

_“She’s not that bad, JJ. You know, if you actually hand things in on time, she can be quite nice. And she’s probably not going to shoot you with lasers.”_

_“I might do, if you continue to talk while I am talking.” Suddenly, she’s appeared next to you (you’d forgotten your cardinal rule about never taking the aisle seat because you were late). She’s talking too quiet for the rest of the class to hear, but they still shift around in their seats and stare, “Shall we continue, Miss Jareau?”_

_The smile on her face as she walks back down to the lectern signifies that she got some sort of sick satisfaction out of making you blush. You hate her a little bit more._


End file.
